Fight or Flight
by coolby
Summary: Australian teen, Owen is sent to live with his father in Orlando for getting into trouble with police over his involvement in underground cage fight clubs. He is suprised to discover what the Orlando kids get up to. Florida might not be so bad after all..
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One-

It was about 11.30pm on a Friday night. We had all been out on the streets for a few hours by now. My mate Chris got a text on his phone from some of the other boys saying they were gonna have a little comp down by the reservoir near the estate. Needless to say, we dropped what we were doing and headed over to the rez. You could tell something was going down. There were heaps of parked cars and a ton of people hanging around. School was set to come back the following Monday, making it the last weekend of the holidays so there were plenty of kids out partaking in a healthy bit of substance abuse and as soon as one of them heard about a fighting tournament, there was bound to be a couple hundred of us turn up.

All the boys wanting to be tough would put there names down, but as soon as the first fight started, half of them would pull out. As me, Chris and Ryan walked up to put our names down I saw at least 5 kids look at us and leave the queue to sign up. I didn't blame them: We were big boys. About to start senior year, the tree of us had been professional fighters for two years and brawlers for a few years before that. Being the holidays a lot of the fighters in our grade had slackened off, but we had taken the spare time to go into a serious training regime: Full on raw-egg shit. We were jogging at dawn, weights till lunch and a good sparring session to finish. So yeah, we were looking pretty intimidating I would imagine. The kids I really felt sorry for were the ones too proud or too drunk to leave the line.

"Name?" asked the dude with a clipboard.

"Owen Finch" I said. Clipboard nodded and jerked his head. I walked over to where the fighters were waiting. I knew most of them from school or from the gym. There would have been easily about 30 or 40 of us. After a while when they had about 50 names down they decided to get started.

"Alright, alright, shut the fuck up. Everyone listen up over here." A dude in a tank top with a shaved head was standing on top of a car yelling with his hands cupped around his mouth. "Welcome to the blood rez." The crowd laughed. "Fuck! Jeff I told you that was a shit name! Alright, welcome to the fight comp. were gonna be kicking this shit off with our first fight in just a moment after I quickly go over a couple of ground rules. This is gonna be your basic cage fight without a cage. No biting, no eye gouging and especially no groin strikes. When your opponent is unable to defend themselves or has submitted you must stop fighting immediately. And last but not least, kick some ass. Let's go!"

The crowd cheered as Tank-top pointed to two random fighters and jerked his thumb.

"You and You, get out there on the mats." Two fighters walked over to the mats.

"Touch gloves, fight." The line about the gloves was just an expression, in this town we fight bare-knuckle. Some fighters had gone to the trouble to put some tape on their knuckles or wrap their fists up with a thin layer of cloth but usually we just went for it. One of the important parts of training is to find a nice brick wall or a rock or even a tree and do a few minutes of knuckle toughening. Me, Chris and Ryan all by now had a few serious calluses on our fists to compliment the nice thick layer of toughened skin. Chris liked to do this thing he read about on the internet involving a bucket of water and some gasoline.

I had roughly calculated that with 50 people I would have to go in about 5 or 6 fights to win. I got called out into the second fight after the first one ended with a knee to the face. The guy had lost a few teeth. I was paired up with a tough looking black guy who I knew from school. The kid could take one hell of a punch but he was a boxer at heart. I didn't have to worry about any tricky head kicks or foot-work or too great a knowledge of submissions from this guy. He had a set of guns on him but nothing I couldn't match.

I took a deep breath and touched knuckles. After we both stepped back, the guy lunged at me with a big right hook. I moved back a little bit and he windmilled in with the left. I moved my head back and it flew past in front of my face. As he started the next punch, he flicked his foot out and tapped me on the shin with it. I looked down to see what was going on and was rewarded with a gigantic haymaker to the ear. My head whipped to the right and my vision went a little foggy. I saw the next one coming from the corner of my eye and blocked it with my fore-arm.

I had to do something or he would just keep driving me back. When his next oversized fist came flying towards me, I ducked under it and drove my shoulder into the guy. I picked him up, took another step forwards and drove him into the ground taking care to make sure my shoulder drove the wind out of him. I reared up, put a knee on his chest and landed two strong right punches into his face. I took the cheek bone so I didn't have to break his nose. He pulled his arms up to cover his face. I grabbed his wrists closest to me, flung my other leg around over his head and held his hand down onto my chest. He was in an arm bar. I pushed my hips up to put some pressure on his elbow joint so that he would tap out. Fuck I hate it when they get stubborn. I applied a little more pressure.

"Don't make me break it!" I said. He finally tapped. I let go and we stood up.

Tank top came over, grabbed my hand and held it up in the air.

"Winner!" he yelled. I held my other arm up as well, soaking up the crowd's cheers. I still had a ringing in my ear and I could see that my opponent's eye and cheekbone on the right side were starting to swell up. He would have a spectacular black eye in the morning.

There were a few more fights; Ryan beat the crap out of an Asian dude from the gym and Chris lost a really tough match with an Irish guy from school with a fondness for uppercuts. The first lot of matches was over. Exactly half the fighters had been weeded out and it was mostly just the skilled guys left. My first fight had pretty much been a given against a much less skilled opponent who's only claim to fame was that he had been getting into fights since pre-school. So long as he wasn't shamed enough to go and get all of his aboriginal cousins I was never in much danger from him. I was up first for the next round with a 6ft kick boxer named Louis. Louis had been in the year above me at school but now he was finished. We got along alright and I had trained with him a couple of times, but you know what they say: You can be best friends outside of the ring but as soon as you step into it, your goal is to kill each other… within the rules of course.

We touched gloves and stepped back. As soon as those gloves touch you have both acknowledged that you are ready to fight. All thoughts of friendship are gone. There is only you and them and only one of you can win the match. We squared off: Slowly circling around each other. Stepping in and out, watching each other's every move. Louis began the motion for a leg kick. I put my knee up to check it but at the last moment he pulled in, circled around and came at me with a spinning back-fist. I dodged it by millimetres. Before he could regain his guard I lashed out with a quick left jab, followed with a right cross that soared right through his guard and took him on the nose. Instead of pulling my fist back in, I grabbed his outside shoulder and pulled him in to a knee. He dropped his hands to block the knee and so while his hands were lowered I swung my left elbow into the side of his head. It made a nice satisfying connection with the side of his head and I felt him slacken as the shock went through his body. I pushed his head down, held onto it with both my hands and brought my knee up at his face a few times but he defended with his arms, absorbing the shock with his forearms.

When my next knee came up, he pivoted his elbow so that it corked my thigh. Then he wrapped his arms around under my knee and picked me up. _Oh shit_, I thought, _this is gonna hurt_. He stepped forwards and drove me backwards into the ground. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck and held his head into my chest to try and stop him rearing up and getting a clean punch in, but this can be hard when you've just been slammed. He overpowered me and reared up. I took the initiative and punched him in the face from underneath but punches are weaker when you've got no room behind you to get a good wind up. The best I could do was a jab. At least my legs were wrapped around his body to stop him getting the top mount.

A strong punch smashed down on my right eye. _fuck, that's gonna look bad tomorrow._ When I saw the sequel coming, I got ready. I palmed his punch to the inside so it was running across my body, then I slipped my foot up to the back of his neck. He could tell that I was preparing for a triangle choke so he leant back. I changed my mind on the triangle choke and brought my foot around the front of his body. I planted it on his chest and kicked him backwards with all the power I could muster. He didn't go flying back off me so much as I shot forwards away from him. We got to our feet and squared up again. He had a small cut from where I had elbowed him and I had bloodied his nose a little with my right cross. I had a black eye coming on and being slammed didn't tickle.

He came at me with a leg kick which connected and I landed punch as he was pulling away. As he darted forwards to make his next move I lashed out with a front kick. As he stumbled back I darted forwards and landed one of my most powerful leg kicks. He threw a clumsy uppercut but it connected none the less and I stumbled back. He came to follow through with a punch that had a wind up on it the size of Beijing but I slipped it out to the side, threw my arm across his throat on the way past and wrapped him up into a standing rear-naked choke.

Luis wasn't stupid. He knew what he could get out of and he knew when he was beaten. He also wasn't a strong believer in being choked into unconsciousness for no reason. But he also knew when the rear naked choke that he was in was sloppy and why it was often not a good idea to do them standing up. Luis was taller than me by about six or seven inches. I was up on tippy toes to have my arms around his throat properly. He threw his weight forwards, reached between his own legs, wrapped his arms around my ankles and pulled them back up between his legs and fell over backwards with me beneath him. My grip slackened severely mostly due to the fact that I had just been slammed with eighty-ninety kilo's of Spanish kick boxer on top of me. He went to twist around so he was facing me but I dug my hooks in, grabbed at his arms and held him down. I tried to slip my arm back around his neck but he pinned his chin down to his chest. I used my other arm to punch him in the side of the head a few times and then slipped my arm up under his chin and locked my choke back in.

After a few seconds Luis tapped out. I released him and we stood up. We shook hands and nodded to each other as Tank-top came down and held my arm up.

"Winner!" he yelled to the crowd circled around.

The next few fights got a little bit brutal: A few broken noses and a couple of chipped or missing teeth. Almost all of the fighter's knuckles had been opened up and there wasn't anybody who didn't have a black eye or a cut on their face somewhere. Ryan had taken a knee to the face which had opened up his eye brow pretty badly. He was still in the competition though: He had retaliated to the knee with a punch to the guts and then an elbow right to the sweet spot on the jaw. The other guy was out cold.

Round three was about to begin. It was about 12.30 at night. There were only 12 fighters left. I got paired up with a heavily tattooed guy who I had never seen before, but I had watched him TKO two different people tonight. There were two fights before mine and then Ryan's fight. I took the opportunity to go take a piss. I was relieved to see that it wasn't red: I had been slammed a few too many times tonight for my liking. By the time I got back the first fight was still going.

One guy had the other guy in a clinch and was throwing knees. After a few attempts it didn't look like any were going to get through so he pivoted and swung the guy around, sticking a foot out to trip him and took the fight to the ground. The guy on the bottom managed to roll the other guy over and get a dominant position in side control where he threw a few knees into the guys ribs before reaching across the guy and performing a figure 4, which is basically where you grab the wrist, slip a hand underneath, grab your own wrist and bending the guys arm in a direction where it isn't supposed to bend until they tap-out. The second fight didn't go for too long, it was between two guys from one of the other high schools, victory by choke submission.

Now it was time for me and Tattoo's to step onto the mats. We touched gloves and the fight was on. I swung a left-right hook combo, and then followed in with a leg kick. He dodged both the punches but the kick caught him a little bit. I stepped back and he darted forwards with a punch that I had to block and then a leg kick of his own.

I darted back, letting the foot pass but then darted forwards while his foot was still off the ground and shoved him back with a front kick. He stumbled backwards and I lunged forwards with a punch. The punch connected with the bridge of his nose, bloodying it but not breaking it. He swung up with a big hook that took me by surprise. I ducked under it, and while I was ducked down he brought up the knee. I managed to get my head out of the way (a knee to the bottom of the jaw and I wouldn't have too many teeth left.) but it still took me in the shoulder.

I let out a gasp of pain before coming up with a rage-fuelled uppercut that missed by inches. He punched me in my exposed ribs. I guess it just goes to show that you can't let anger take over in a fight. I landed another leg kick and then dodged a right hook before he swung a brutal roundhouse at my ribs. I absorbed the strike with my arm. He came back with another roundhouse and I sacrificed my ribs in order to wrap his foot up. I caught the kick under my arm and kicked out his other leg. He was on the ground and I was holding his foot so I used the same leg to knee him in the hamstring twice and then kick him in the ribs.

People might say that kicking someone when they're down is cheap, but if it's not a crotch shot, an eye gouge or a bite, its allowed. I stepped back and waited for him to get up, but when he was halfway there, I roundhouse kicked him in the side of the head. There was an audible cringe from the crowd as 'old mate tattoos' hit the mats, out cold.

"Jesus Owen, well I guess that's one way of doing it…" said the referee.

"Winner!" he announced.

"Ha ha ha, That was cold man. That was ice cold." said Ryan as I arrived back in the waiting area.

"It's a cruel sport. Besides, I've been getting submissions all night. I wanted to show these people that I can bang with the best of them." I said with a smile.

"Well I think they know now…" Ryan nodded.

"You're up bro, kick that clown's ass." I said.

"I'm fighting Tom from school." said Ryan.

"Well beat the shit out of Tom from school. There are no friends on the mats from when those gloves touch, you know that." I said.

Ryan and Tom touched gloves. The fight's highlights consisted of Ryan throwing the first punch across Tom's brow. A little bit of blood spattered but at this time of the night it was just as likely to be from Ryan's knuckles, Tom threw an elbow and it opened up a little cut on Ryan's cheek bone. Somewhere along the line the fight went to the ground with Tom on top, He landed a few good hits to Ryan's head and it looked like it was going to be all over but Ryan managed to roll Tom over and get in a few good hits before Tom kicked him off. The fight ended with Tom at the receiving end of a barrage of right hooks to the jaw.

"Fucking good form mate, couldn't have done it better myself." I said.

"He was giving me the shits, what can I say." laughed Ryan.

"You kneed him in the guts and punched him in the jaw like 8 times. The ref was getting ready to pull you off him." I laughed.

Tank top and his buddies were getting ready to divide the remainder of us up into pairs for the next fight when people started to panic and run for their cars. That's when I heard the sound in the distance: Police sirens.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two-

"That sounds like cops" I said and ran over to gather up my stuff. I quickly started shoving my bare feet into my shoes: An old daggy pair of Globe skate shoes. My globes had gotten me out of many scrapes before and I wasn't about to let them stop now. Beside me I could see Ryan pulling his shoes on out of the corner of my eye. We both pulled our t-shirts on and grabbed our bags before jogging over to where Ryan should have parked the car we all came in.

"Where's Chris?" I asked.

"He got KO'd in the first set. I think someone took him home." replied Ryan.

We were just getting into the car when a few cop cars rocked up and told everybody to freeze where they were. Underground fight clubs were becoming a problem in the city and cops were really trying to crack down on us. I couldn't see why; we weren't hurting anyone. Well, we were, but you know what I mean. Anyway, just as we got to the car, one of the cop cars pulled up right in front of us and switched a spotlight on right in our faces.

"Place your hands on the vehicle." said a voice through the car megaphone.

Ryan turned to me. "Get out of here Owen! They have my car's plates, but you aren't tied to this. One more run in with the cops and you're gonna be in some seriously deep shit, so just get the fuck out of here." I thought about it for a second before putting my arms through my bag's loops, tightening the straps, turning around and sprinting towards my escape. Cops all around me started shouting but I just powered forwards with all my speed.

I whipped past a cop speaking into his radio;

"Suspect is wearing green board shorts, a black t-shirt and a white backpack. Suspect is attempting escape on foot." A second cop reached out to grab at my arm but I avoided him and kept running. Up ahead of me was a line of cops between me and the street. I kept running towards them. At the last moment one dived low to try and bring me down. I jumped over as he dived low, planted a foot on his back, kicked off and kept running. I stopped for a second to look back; A couple of cops were moving to chase me on foot and heaps more were arresting everybody left inside the reservoir car-park.

I locked eyes with Ryan as a cop was slapping handcuffs on him. I turned and started sprinting again. There were 3 or maybe 4 cops running after me yelling at me to stop. I don't mean to brag, but I was fucking fit. I had been getting up every morning and going for a 6km run at dawn. I had been doing some seriously tough training the last few weeks and I would be damned if I was gonna let a bunch of random middle aged badge toters outrun me. Hell, I could have turned around at any moment and beaten the shit out of any one of them, probably any two of them, three maybe but definitely not four when they were all armed with capsicum spray, guns and radios.

Coming the other way down the road I saw another cop car. It pulled up to a halt just a bit further up the road. Flight hadn't worked; nothing to do now but fight. I stoped and turned around. There were only three cops behind me and two more in the squad car up ahead. If I chose not to give up, my best other way out was to attack five police officers and steal a police car. This was getting really deep. If I gave up now I was in shit, but if I tried to escape and it failed, I was just digging my hole deeper and deeper. But then there was that other option where I escaped… I put my hands on my head and started walking towards the three cops. They were all out of breath.

"s-stop there." The cop panted as he tried to catch his breath. I kept walking closer.

"Stop there and- and get down on your knees." The cop panted again.

I slammed my palm out into the cop's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him before throwing him to the floor; I wanted to take these guys down as harmlessly as I could, because if I got caught, I didn't want grievous bodily harm to be on the list of offences.

The next cop scrabbled for his capsicum spray and actually got it out of the little holster thing before I grabbed his arm and pulled him forwards, towards me. As he stumbled towards me I stepped to the side and tripped him, sending him sprawling. I saw the can of capsicum spray fall out of his hand and roll away. I turned to the third cop who had gone for his spray too. I was about two steps away from him and he was already raising his can to point at me. I knew first hand what capsicum spray felt like and I wasn't at all eager to feel it again. I turned away from the cop and continued to run up the street. I purposefully planted a foot on the outstretched hand of the cop I had just tripped over.

The squad car was still parked in the middle of the road up ahead and there was two cops jogging towards me. One of them was talking into a radio while the second appeared to have something in his hand. I assumed that it was yet another can of capsicum spray. I was quickly forming a plan on what to do when I reached them.

_Ill need to take out the guy with the spray first, preferably with a hit to the sweet spot. If he's not out, ill have to follow through with a kick to the ribs or a knee to the gut to hunch him over. Then ill drop him with an elbow to the back of the head or if I'm in a good spot, ill knee up into his face._

I had a few more metres to go. I was warming up my right hand for a hefty hook when the cop lifted his hand. What I thought was spray turned out to be a TASER X26 which the officer aimed at me and fired. Two little thingies attached to what I can only describe as string flew out with a little pop and embedded themselves in my chest.

I've been capsicum sprayed before. I've been kicked in the head, punched in the face, kneed in the guts, elbowed in the ear, slammed on my back, choked until I blacked out and knocked out cold a million times over, but until that point I had never been hit with a taser before, and I cant say that I was particularly disappointed about that. I could quite happily have gone a whole lifetime without the uncomfortable experience of god knows how many volts coursing through my system.

I'm not sure what happened next, but I believe the phrase: 'Went down like a sack of shit' may be appropriate. They picked my twitching ass up off the road and threw me in the back of the squad car. I'm not even sure if they used cuffs, but they sure as hell didn't need to; I was out for the count.

It must have been at least a few hours later that I came to in one of the police holding cells. Well that was it; I was in some seriously, seriously deep shit. Not only had I been at an underground cage fighting event, but I had beaten up a couple of cops, fracturing someone's jaw in the process and had had to be forcefully subdued with a taser. If that didn't look bad on paper when they showed it to my mum, I didn't know what would. I guess I really fucking lost it back there…

It would have been another hour later when the door opened and a cop walked in.

"Come with me, mate. Your mum is waiting for you." said the cop.

I got up and followed him out the door. I was still wearing my trunks, shoes and black shirt. I don't know what had happened to my bag. The cop walked me out into the lobby area where mum was waiting for me. At least there was sunlight coming in the window which meant they hadn't gotten her out of bed to come and get me. The cop pointed to where she was. "We've already given her your bag and things, so you guys can just leave straight away." The cop turned around and walked back down the hallway.

I walked over to mum. She was standing there holding my backpack in one hand and a few papers in the other hand. To say that she looked angry was about as accurate as saying head-butting the 2-13 to Melbourne might give you an unpleasant tingling sensation in your forehead.

"Are we moving again?" I asked.

"_We_ aren't moving anywhere." She said.

"They're not sending me to juvy* are they?" I asked.

"They wanted to, but I convinced them otherwise." She said.

"Where am I moving then?" I asked.

"You're going to Florida to live with your dad in Orlando." She said.

*juvy: Juvenile penitentiary- underage prison

We drove home in silence and as soon as the car stopped I got out, grabbed my bag and went to have a shower. Nothing feels better after a night of fighting than a nice shower, and I was feeling pretty low at that moment. After the shower, I went to my room, pulled the curtains and crashed out on my bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three-

There were only two days left before I was leaving the country. I was sitting at home watching TV with my little brother Jeffery. There was absolutely nothing on, but that wasn't about to stop us from watching. Mum was out at a birthday party for one of her friends, so me and Jeffery were home alone wasting our lives in front of the TV. It was about 8:30pm on a Friday night and the empty pizza boxes were still sitting on the TV where we had left them; where the hell else would they be? Just as some chick on some pathetic game show made a terrible, greed spurred decision and lost half of her money, someone knocked at the door. As I laughed at the lady, I got up to answer the door. We don't have a very big house, so it wasn't a long walk. I opened the door to see Chris and Ryan standing there.

"Hey guys, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Get dressed. We're going in 5 minutes." They said. I was wearing a pair of blue board shorts and a white singlet. I turned around to look at my brother still on the couch behind me.

"You gonna be alright here by yourself till mum comes back?" I asked him. I already knew what he would say, He was 15 years old, I was 17 and a half. Of course he would be alright by himself.

"Duh." He said.

"Alright, well you know where the fire extinguisher is and you know where we keep the meat cleaver, so I can't think of any emergency that you won't be equipped to handle." I went into my room and put on a pair of boot cut jeans and a thin white hoodie. After messing my hair up in the mirror and scrunching up the sleeves with two swipes of my hands I walked back out again. I grabbed my wallet and phone off the kitchen table, said goodbye to my brother and walked out the front door with my mates.

"You see Chris" said Ryan; "That's how long it should take a man to get ready to go out; not half an hour doing their hair and plucking their eye brows."

"I don't pluck my eyebrows." defended Chris.

"Whatever you reckon! I can see the red marks where you've done it, ya fag." I said.

We laughed as we climbed into Ryan's car and drove off.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

"You didn't think your buddies would let you fuck off to America without throwing you a going away party did you?" said Chris.

"Are you guys serious? Thanks a heap, that's fucking tops!" I said.

The car pulled up out the front of Chris's house. There was already a heap of people in the backyard, the music was going, and people were still rocking up. We climbed out and walked around the house to where the party was. Most of grade 12 was there; almost everybody I knew. Chris had brought the sound system out onto the back steps and everybody was having a great time. Ryan went up into the house and came back down with a twelve pack of Bundaberg rum and coke and put it in my hands.

"Happy going away, bro." He said. The cans had obviously just come out of a fridge because they were nice and cold; just the way I liked them. I opened the box and cracked one open. I held the box out and Chris and Ryan both took a can as well. I put the box into a cooler beside the sound system and walked out into the party. I knew everybody who was there and had a great time catching up with everyone, making sure I had their correct number and their MSN for when I left. Everyone wanted to wish me a safe trip and say their goodbyes for when I left the country. I had lived in Melbourne my whole life and had known some of these kids for over 10 years.

"Owen!" said someone behind me. I turned around and saw Dwayne; the black guy I submitted in my first fight last week. His cheek bone still had a bit of a bruise on it, but nothing you wouldn't see if you weren't looking for it.

"How's it going Dwayne" I said with a grin. He smiled back.

"Pretty good mate, Good brawl the other night." he said. We never held grudges about fights; what happens on the mat stays on the mat.

"Yeah, she was a bit short, but definitely a good one. How'd you go when the cops showed up?" I asked.

"I only saw them on the way out. They went straight past me to get at you lot." He said.

"Great timing I guess." I laughed.

"Yeah, sorry to hear your taking off though. We'll have to have one last spar before you go then aye?" he said.

"Ill be down at the gym tomorrow some point hopefully. Ill give you a text then and hopefully neither of us will be too hung over." I said.

"Not much chance of that, but it's never stopped me fighting in the past." He laughed.

We said our goodbyes and walked away. After talking to a few other people I saw another person I had fought the other weekend; Louis the kick-boxer.

"Louis you tall bastard." I laughed. He spotted me and a big grin cracked across his face.

"Owen. What's this I hear of you leaving before I get another chance to kick your ass?" he laughed.

"I'm going away to get special treatment on the tooth of yours I got lodged between my knuckles last weekend." I joked. Louis laughed.

"Nah man, its sad to hear you got busted again. Good luck beating the shit out of all those American kids dumb enough to fuck with you." said Louis.

"Thanks man." I nodded.

It was about 10:30, later that night. Me, Chris and Ryan were sitting on the back steps next to our respective coolers; I was drinking my rum, Chris had his beers and Ryan was downing UDL's like they were going out of fashion. There were a few other people with us, just joking around and talking about bullshit. I stood up when my phone started ringing. I sculled the last little bit from my rum can, placed it on the can wall and answered my phone, walking away from the noise as I did so. It was mum.

"Hello?" I asked as I put the phone to my ear.

"Where are you?" asked mum.

"Chris and Ryan showed up. They were throwing me a going away party so I'm around at Chris's place." I answered. I knew that she had been drinking around her friend's place when I left over 2 hours ago so it was pretty much a guarantee that she was drunk now.

"What time are you getting home?" she asked.

"I don't know, probably around 12." I said.

"You're not fighting, are you?" she asked.

"No, just having a few rums." I said.

"Alright. Don't do anything stupid." she said before I hung up the phone.

I walked back over to my friends sliding my phone back into my jeans as I did so.

"Who was that?" asked Ryan.

"Mum" I said.

"Is she cool?" asked Ryan.

"Yeah, she was just checking up on me; making sure I wasn't fighting." I said.

"Cool" he said.

"Chuck us another rum out of that esky near your leg will ya?" I asked someone sitting across from me.

At about 12:45 I opened the front door. The lights were all off, meaning everyone was probably asleep so I walked to my room as quietly as I could. I kicked my shoes off, took off my jeans and shirt and then climbed into bed.

So here I am, sitting in what is hands down the biggest vehicle I have ever been inside; One of those big ass international jet planes; you know the ones that have 3 floors and TVs in the headrests. I was sitting on the left side of the bottom floor, beside the aisle. The seat beside me was empty and I spent most of the journey watching the TV or sleeping. I had flown from Melbourne airport to the Sydney international airport, then from Sydney to LA and then another domestic flight got me to Orlando. This all happened over the course of about 17 hours. When I landed in Orlando I was half expecting my dad to be waiting for me. I don't know why he would; I mean I'm only the guy's son for fuck sake.

Another 20 minute cab ride left me out the front of his apartment block. It was about 3'oclock in the afternoon when the taxi pulled up out the front. The taxi driver got my bag out of the trunk for me, and I walked towards the building. It was one of those apartment blocks set out like an Australian block of Units; separate three or four room buildings built in ridiculous proximity to each other. There was a car out the front of his unit which I could only assume belonged to him; a 1972 Chevrolet El Camino. _Well that explains everything, _I thought; _my dad is a pot-head._

I walked past the black Ute up to the front door. Everything I owned at that point was either in my suitcase or in the white backpack I had slung over one shoulder. I quickly looked around for a doorbell and when I was fairly sure that it didn't exist I rapped my knuckles on the screen door. It made that metallic rat-a-tat sound that you always associate with screen doors. Probably about half a minute later the door opened inwards and for the first time in 10 years I saw my father. He flicked the lock on the screen door and opened that too. I stepped back out of the way to allow it to open properly.

"Hey dad, how's it going?" I nodded.

"Owen? I thought you weren't coming till Friday." He said.

"Today is Friday." I said.

"Shit aye? My bad." He said.

"Sure. Can I come in?" I asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, come on in. Ill show you your room." He said moving back out of the way and waving me inside.

I wasn't totally sure what to make of my dad. He was slightly shorter than me, pretty burly looking. He had a bit of a beer gut happening and as soon as I walked into the living room a single sniff confirmed my suspicions of my father being a doper; the place smelled like Amsterdam. He walked through the lounge room, past a little corner kitchen down a tiny little hallway. There were four doors in it.

"That one is my room, that one is your room, that's the bathroom and that one is the laundry." He said, pointing to all the doors in turn.

"Sweet" I nodded, opening my door and throwing my bags inside. It wasn't really much to look at. There was a single bed, a closet and a window that looked directly at the wall of the house next door.

"So this is it then, aye?" I asked.

"Sure is." nodded my dad. "You got the closet to keep your clothes in, the window gives you some decent light, and you got the bed for sleeping and what-not."

"Wow, they've really thought of everything." I nodded sarcastically.

After a guided tour of the bathroom, laundry and my dad's room we wound up back in the kitchen. The kitchen was basically the corner of the lounge room, sectioned off by a bench. You could tell when you were in the kitchen because the carpet turned into tiles, as my stoner dad so helpfully informed me. Dad put the kettle on and we leant on the bench as we were waiting for it to boil.

"So you're in grade 12 now, mate?" asked Dad.

"Yeah." I nodded.

"So what's it been now? 8, 9 years?" he asked.

"10" I corrected.

"How's Jeffery and your mum?" he asked.

"They're both fine." I nodded.

"Good, good…" said Dad. Finally the jug boiled and Dad scrounged around for a few cups and some tea bags.

"Hope your okay with this stuff." Said dad, holding up some cheap no brand tea bags. "It tastes like shit, but for a couple bucks a box, you learn to love It." he laughed.

"Yeah its fine." I said. "I heap sugar into it anyway, so it doesn't really mater." He laughed at that too.

"So tomorrow you're gonna go down to the bus stop down the road, go to the high school." He said casually.

"Tomorrow's Saturday." I said.

"Oh that's right. I keep thinking its Thursday. That's why I wasn't at the airport when your plane came down." He nodded, hitting himself in the head dramatically. "On Monday you can go to the school down the road."

"Sure" I said. "Sounds like fun"

After the cup of tea, Dad sat back down in front of the TV and I went into my room to unpack my stuff. I was really tired but I didn't want to go to sleep until that night, otherwise my body clock would be shot to hell from jet lag.

I opened my bag and pulled out a heap of clothes; I hadn't brought them all, but there was still a hefty pile. Under a few pairs of jeans and a few more pairs of board shorts was a little pile of t-shirts and a couple of zip up hoodies. After I had packed the clothes into the closet I got out one of those cardboard tubes and pulled out a few posters that I had brought with me to personalise the room a little bit; they were mostly UFC posters, but there was a Parkway Drive poster and a Lamb of God poster as well. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier or not, but I'm a bit of a metal kid. I don't go in for the piercings and the super tight jeans or any of the rest of it, but that's just the music I enjoy listening to. After the big bag was empty, I opened my backpack. I pulled out my little speaker set that I hadn't trusted the airport guys enough to put in my big bag and I got out my 4 socket power board. After I had plugged it in to a little socket near my bed, I plugged in the speakers and my phone charger. I got out my iPod and plugged it into the speakers; now I had a nice little sound system going. The last thing in my bag was my laptop; it was a slow old thing, but it ran iTunes, LimeWire and MSN, so I couldn't complain. I got out the cords and hooked that all up too.

I looked around my new room. It had a few posters up, a closet, a bed near the window with a little pile of cords and technology on the floor beside the bed. At some point id get a little table for all that, but it was all on the floor at the moment. Not too bad a setup.

The rest of the day went past without much excitement; I watched some TV with dad, sat in my room listening to some music, had a go connecting the internet, but it turns out that dad doesn't have internet and Despite my best efforts to stay awake, I did doze off for an hour. At about 7 Dad cooked up some pasta packets from the cupboard for dinner; pretty nutritious stuff. I finally decided that I'd waited long enough to go to bed and crashed at about 7.30-7.45.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four-

Saturday and Sunday passed without too much excitement. Not to say it was boring, just nothing too interesting happened; watched some TV, went for a drive in the El Camino. God, I hate that, I mean the Camino. El means the, so when I say the El Camino, I'm saying "the The Camino". Anyway, we went for a quick cruise. Dad showed me the school id be going to. Fuck it was huge!

Then it was Monday. I got up, had some cereal, packed up some sandwiches, all that exciting stuff before I packed my school bag and walked out the front door. I didn't know if dad had already left for work (if he worked) or if he was still in bed. I locked the door anyway. It was about a 45 second walk to the bus stop down on the corner. When I rocked up, there were already a few kids standing around. Most of them looked like they were a good 3 or 4 years younger than me and there was a dude about my age with what looked like his girlfriend; at least I hoped it was, because in my country we don't do _that _to our sisters.

One of the younger kids looked at me. "Are you new here?" he asked.

"Yeah" I nodded. At this sound, ol' mate and his girlfriend stopped snogging and had a look at me. I looked back.

"How are ya's?" I said with a little nod.

"What's your accent?" asked the girl.

"Australian" I answered

"What's your name?" asked one of the kids.

"Owen Finch" I said.

"Isn't that Irish?" asked the guy.

"My grandparents are Irish. I lived in Melbourne my whole life."

Then the bus pulled up. It was the whole big yellow thing like in the movies. One cool thing about America was that I didn't have to worry about a school uniform. I was wearing a 'Parkway Drive' (An Australian metal-core band) t-shirt, jeans and a pair of high top globes. There was a fair few kids on the bus and most of them were staring at me. I just found a seat and sat down. At one point I locked eyes with some tough looking guy who was looking at me like I just took a shit on his lawn. I winked at him with a little grin.

"How's it going champion?" I said before sitting down. I didn't give a fuck; I knew I could beat the fuck out of him if he tried the whole "pick on the new kid" thing.

After I got off the bus, I started walking towards the big school building with all the other kids. The tough guy from the bus knocked me with his shoulder as he went past.

"Watch it freak." He said. I've never been much for subtlety, and my pride wasn't about to allow me to let this slide.

"Eat my dick, ya cunt!" I yelled after him. He stopped and turned around.

"What did you just call me?" he said.

"You heard me Cunt." I said. "Now either step up, or jog the fuck on." He started walking back towards me. I slipped my bag off and let it fall to the ground behind me. All the kids from the bus had started crowding around and a few other kids from around the school had noticed and were looking on eagerly. I barely noticed a few kids pulling out their phones because about 95 kg's of pissed off tough cunt was moving quickly towards me.

"I'll show you, you little piece of shit." He said as he swung in with a big right hand. I ducked under the punch and kneed him in the guts. As he hunched over I planted my hands on his chest and pushed him back. He sprawled over backwards onto the bitumen. There was a big sound from the crowd; about half-way between a gasp and a cheer. 'Tough guy' went red in the face as he stood up; He looked pretty P.O'd. He came back again with another big swing. I palmed his punch to the side before I grabbed his collar with both hands and gave him a quick head-butt to the face; my forehead landed on the bridge of his nose. Textbook stun-shot; His eyes must have been watering big time and it would have been the perfect opportunity to K.O him with a big roundhouse to the head or a haymaker to the jaw. I could use as big a wind-up as I wanted because he couldn't see shit. I didn't though, because I wanted to give him the chance to back down. I knew he wouldn't; he would have way too much pride for it, but I wanted it to be his choice. It stopped me feeling so bad about turning this guy's face into a big puffy, swollen mess.

After a moment the guy had his eyes clear. He still looked really mad, but he had that look of recognition. He now knew what he had gotten himself into.

"Just walk away mate." I said, maybe a little too patronisingly. He charged again. Now it was time to stop going easy; He had made his bed, now it was time to slam him into it. I didn't give him the chance to try and hit me again. I started with an uppercut and then followed with a right cross. He was still coming at me so I dropped low, wrapped up his legs, waited for the momentum to take him over my back, then powered upwards with my legs and threw him up over the top. He did a little summersault in the air and slammed down on his back, behind me. I straightened up, dusted myself off, picked up my bag and walked past the crowd towards the school building without a backwards glance. The people in the crowd cheered as I walked past, but I decided it was heaps more bad-ass if I just ignored them and kept walking.

At first break, or "Recess" as they called it, Whatever; At lunch time I went into the big eating hall area, sat down at a table and whipped out my sandwiches in their little brown paper bag. If this was a movie, it would normally be about this point where some kid came and sat down next to me and in an incredibly over the top charismatic way, extended his friendship. Well I waited, and after a few minutes it became obvious that the kid must not exist in real life. What a shame. Oh well, I stood up and decided I was going to have to go out of my way and do the whole friendship thing myself. I saw a kid sitting by himself eating sandwiches out of a brown paper bag. I walked over and sat next to him.

"How's it goin' mate?" I asked.

"What?" he said.

"HELLO." I said slowly and clearly.

"Uh… Hi." He said.

"Mind if I sit here?" I asked.

"Sure, I guess. You're new right?" he asked

"Yeah" I nodded.

"Where did you come here from?" he asked.

"Melbourne" I said.

"Where is that? Like somewhere in the UK?" he asked.

"Australia." I said.

"Why'd you move?" he asked.

"Got in trouble with the Cops one too many times" I laughed.

"Doing what?" he asked.

"I was in this big illegal fight-club" I said. "Plus, I tried to fight like 6 cops. They hit me with a TASER in the end. It was either here or Juvy."

"I take it Brett didn't know that when he tried to fight you this-morning." laughed the kid.

"Oh, you saw that did you?" I laughed.

"Not first hand. Josh showed me on his phone in class." He said.

"Oh. So I can take it that the whole school knows by now?" I inquired.

"Yeah, pretty much." He laughed.

"Right… So what's the go around here? You reckon ill get in shit for it?" I asked.

"You obviously haven't been here long." He said.

"Three days so far." I said.

"Well with moves like that, I think you're gonna like what I'm about to tell you." He grinned.

"What?" I asked.

"In this town, we're all about brawling. Pretty much every guy and half the chicks at this school know MMA. You go out to a party; there'll be some organised brawling happening out back." He said.

"For real?" I gasped.

"Dude, There's a big party on this weekend, and after that little display I'm betting everyone's gonna want to know what the new kid's got." He said.

"Hell yeah, ill totally be up for that!" I said. "I don't think I got your name though man."

"It's Brian." He said. "Yours?"

"Owen" I said.

"Irish, that's cool man…" he nodded.

That afternoon I caught the bus back to the corner and walked home. Some of the kids from this-morning were walking the same way as me. Most of them had heard about the fight that I had gotten into and asked if I would be fighting at the party on the weekend.

"Sure will mate, wouldn't miss a comp for the world." I nodded.

Then I got to the complex where my house was, and turned to walk up the driveway.

"See ya's later, eh?" I nodded at them.

"See you tomorrow." One said back. I walked up to my dad's place and went inside. The car was there and I only noticed then that it had been missing that morning.

_So my dad does have a job after all… _I thought. As I opened the door, the smell of pot hit me in the face. The T.V. sits beside the door, which means that the first thing you see as you walk inside is the couch and the hallway that begins right beside the couch; opposite the door.

The first thing I saw was my dad sitting on the couch, surrounded by a cloud of smoke. A big curvy glass bong sat in front of him on the coffee table beside a few lighters and a bag of weed.

"Hey Owen." said my dad with a dopey little grin. His eyes were red and bagged and judging by the amount of smoke in the room, he was well into his baggie.

"Hey dad…" I said. I walked past him and dumped my bag in my room. I already had assumed that my dad smoked weed, and from what I'd heard at school, so did most of America. I didn't know why walking in on my dad and his bong had been such a shock, I guess it had just been a surprise and I had assumed that he was going to be really discreet about it and only do it when I wasn't around. I mean, I didn't really care that he did it; it was his choice, he wasn't hurting anybody. I mean, I've smoked weed a few times before with my mates back in Australia, but only as a group activity. I've never bought weed, I don't think I would ever do it alone and I made a point not to do it too regularly. I guess I was cool with it. It had just been a shock was all… to walk in on it right after school while I was thinking about other stuff.

I was sitting on my bed, thinking all this over when dad opened the door.

"You alright mate?" he asked.

"Yeah, fine." I said, smiling at him.

"Look, I'm sorry you had to find out this way…" he said.

"Nah, I had already guessed it." I said.

"Really? How?" he asked.

"Well, this whole house smells like reefer, You seem really calm and relaxed, like a stoner, and I guess the car kinda clued me in too…" I said.

"The car?" he asked.

"Chevrolet El Camino? I mean, its even the 70's model, dad; Its totally a stoner car. Its right up there with the VW Kombi" I laughed.

"Are you ok with it? Like, does it upset you to know I do it?" he asked.

"Nah dad, I'm cool with it. Like, you're not hurting anybody, and I get the idea that it's fairly common around here." I said "like, its not as if the cops are gonna kick in the door because you smoke a 50 bag here and there."

"Ha ha, yeah, true." He said.

"But if you're growing out back, you better tell me now." I joked.

"No, nothing like that" he laughed. "I buy it from a guy down the street."

We talked for a little while longer before he went back out to the lounge room and after a while, I went out a joined him. Not smoking, just watching T.V. he smoked another couple of cone-loads before he packed it up and leaned back on the couch. My dad was a good laugh while he was stoned; we joked about all kinds of shit while we watched some crappy show on TV. I think I could get used to having a pot-head for a dad; he seemed way more relaxed than mum and when he was high, I feel like I could have asked permission to do anything and gotten away with it:

"_Hey dad, I'm gonna invite some mates around for a few drinks."_

"_Go for it."_

"_I might just take your car for a spin."_

"_Sure, why not."_

"_Mind if I throw that bong through the TV screen and punch you in the face?"_

"_Nah, please yourself."_

After a while grunted his way off the couch and slowly made his way into the kitchen. _Oh god _I thought, _Munchies time_.

"Agh, where do we keep all the yummy food!" he said in mock-anger. "This fridge is full of crap!"

"boil a cup of noodles." I said.

"Ah ha!" he yelled. "Good thinking." Then he opened the cupboard and pulled out four noodle cups.

"Oh, I don't want any" I said, thinking some were for me. My father turned to face me in disgust;

"Get your own damn food." He laughed.


End file.
